She Reverberates Through Him
by storybycorey
Summary: Her fingertips tap against his psyche in a way he has a hard time fathoming. And an even harder time erasing. Written for XF Writing Challenge Prompt: Sound Timeline: Post-breakup, pre-revival


Written for XF Writing Challenge Prompt: Sound

Timeline: Post-breakup, pre-revival

He still remembers her first staccato-ed knocks at the door. Tap tap tap. A pickaxe, delicately chiseling its way beneath the building. Carefully tunneling through the basement corridors, and promising to leave a mess of rubble in its path.

When they told him to expect a new partner, he'd prepared for battle. He'd trained his ears for the ding of the elevator, and braced himself at the sound of her heels crescendo-ing down the hall. He'd resented the intrusion, the invasion of her soft femininity into his cluttered burrow. There was no room for her here. No room in his office, no room in his life.

But his efforts had been futile, for as soon as she spoke, as soon as her honeyed alto swept through the room, his defenses had softened. And when he'd caught a hint of defiance, a rebelliousness in the arch of her brow, he knew his assumptions had been premature. There was something intriguing about this woman, this Scully, something deep within her she attempted to hide, but something there nonetheless.

And as she'd made her way from the basement that day, he'd grinned. Her footsteps echo-ed their way back down the hallway, sweeping away the rubble and clearing a path for her return. Tap tap tap. Her pulse, steady and pure, crept up behind him and held, lingering there long after she was gone.

It wasn't until several minutes had passed that he realized his fingers were still tapping to the beat.

….

And twenty-three years later, they still haven't stopped. Tapping. The cadence of her footsteps, the rapping of her knuckles, the hum of her voice- she reverberates through him like a tuning fork. She's a song that's been stuck in his head for twenty-three years, and no matter how diligent his attempts, he can't rid himself of her tune.

Since those first knocks against his door, her melody has defined him. Breaths, sobs, gunshots. Lullabies, murmurs, whispers. Sometimes a cacophony, but more often a refrain so achingly exquisite, it hurts to listen. Her fingertips tap against his psyche in a way he has a hard time fathoming. And an even harder time erasing.

Because he's not supposed to hear those taps anymore. He's not supposed to require them like air. And though he feels her presence in every squeak of a door, every creak of the floorboards, he's supposed to have turned it all off.

He's supposed to have forgotten.

But hardly a day goes by when he's not reminded, when his heart doesn't stutter like a soldier's, years beyond the battle, at the slightest triggering sound. His life is littered with auditory souvenirs, cluttering his shelves and collecting dust, as he tries in vain to leave her behind.

But how can he leave her behind, when she is everywhere?

When just this afternoon, listening to the Yankees play, he was drawn back fifteen years upon hearing the crack of the bat?

Back to the warmth of her fingers grappling with his own, while hairs brushed at his lips and laughter vibrated in the cove between their bodies. Back to the absolute giddiness of that night, when he'd held her so closely against him, he hadn't even minded leaving the park throbbing with need.

Or when yesterday, tearing open a bag of sunflower seeds, he found himself back in a rented Taurus with her, soft breaths steaming against the window while she slept through another mind-numbing stakeout?

Fighting the cellophane rustle in order not to wake her. And yet, what he wouldn't give to be back in another nondescript car, cracking his teeth against a seed and hoarding her sleepy sighs.

Or when last week, hearing the whisper of his necktie slide through his collar, he was swept back to D.C., standing beneath the doorway with her, as she told him of Diana Fowley's death?

Reliving that exquisite yearning, the ache of her soft lips against his forehead and the desperate craving of her thumbs stuttering across his lips.

Or when a month ago, napping beside the fish tank and listening to its watery warbles, he was carried back to the most miraculous night of his life?

The ecstasy of seeing her skin, flushed with want. Of her slipping beneath his sheets to lie naked beside him, and of him weeping from the fragile beauty of her. Of her telling him he was her destiny, he was her fate, he was her entire existence, as she'd come undone beneath him.

Or when every time he steps outside, surrounded by the thrum of locusts, he hears her throaty voice, singing to him in the darkness? Or when each time he hears a baby's plaintive wail, he sees William's hungry mouth, nursing at her milky breast?

Or when every damn night, lying down in their bed, the squeak of the springs brings him back home? Into the cradle of her pelvis as she heaves above him, undulates against him, quakes around him. As she moans his name over and over and over again…

….

How can he forget, when she is still here?

She is within him, she is through him, she is around him. The drumming of her heart has accompanied his own for so long, he knows no other rhythm. He doesn't know how to march to a different beat anymore, how to dance to a different tune.

He only knows that the sounds of her are slowly torturing him, and he can't bear the torment much longer. The silent void of deaf ears is more desirable than reliving his past with every breath he takes.

He'd rather dissolve into an artist's insanity, severing his ear with a glistening blade, than feel his heart break one more desperate time.

….

It's in the midst of this anguish, this crumbling to his core, that he hears it. Faint and quiet, the sound shimmering in the distance like a mirage. He thinks he has finally succumbed, given himself over to the madness. That he has finally been engulfed by the overwhelming ache of missing her.

But then he hears it again.

Tap tap tap.

His heart surges at the familiarity.

He finds his way to the door, scrubbing his hand against his cheeks and running his fingers through his hair. Hoping his torment isn't painted too desperately across his face.

And as he opens the door into the night, he closes his eyes. He's afraid to see.

But it doesn't matter, because he feels. Her arms around his waist and her head beneath his chin and her cheek against his chest.

And he hears. Her breath, her tears, her hushed voice as she whispers his name.

And he doesn't care why she's here, doesn't ask. Because the only thing he's capable of doing is cocooning her in his arms and bowing his head into her neck. And spilling the tears that have flooded him so endlessly since the moment she left him.

Her hands clutch at his shoulders as she turns her face into him, skating her lips across his cheek. She kisses away the salt and the sorrow. She presses his forehead against her own in a way that is so achingly familiar, it hitches his breath.

And then she whispers, "I'm home."

And it's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard.


End file.
